New Products - November/December 2012

CED Magazine

Trilithic gets CAP license

Trilithic has introduced new HTTP delivery capabilities for sending both EAS and IPAWS/CAP messages over IP. Trilithic’s new CAP & Audio HTTP Delivery License allows MSOs using either the EASyCAP Emergency Management System or the EASyPlus Encoder/Decoder (using the EASyCAP Integrated Server) to now also deliver EAS and IPAWS/CAP messages to streaming video customers.

If an emergency message is received from an EAS source, CAP source or is locally generated at the Encoder/Decoder, the EAS message is converted, and IPAWS-compliant CAP messages are delivered to a list of defined HTTP/HTTPS servers. The CAP message identifier guarantees that duplicate messages can always be detected, regardless of how or where the message was received. And several options are available to allow the end user to customize the format of the alert audio.

Now MSOs can offer EAS to all subscribers, no matter what device is used to consume services.

Active Broadband enhances ARM software

Active Broadband Networks has announced enhancements to its software that improve operator visibility into Internet Protocol Detail Record (IPDR) data collected from cable modem termination systems (CMTSs) in DOCSIS networks.

Cable operators rely on IPDR data to compute subscriber Internet usage for usage metering and usage-based pricing, as well as a variety of broadband service management applications.

Active Broadband’s Active Resource Manager (ARM) collects, processes and stores IPDR data streamed from CMTSs. IPDR processing primarily involves time normalization and usage data mediation, but the ARM also performs a series of checks and cross-checks to validate the completeness and correctness of IPDR data to detect anomalies that can result in the computation of inaccurate Internet usage data.

The enhanced ARM software presents operators with a real-time dashboard view and stores information about each detected anomaly in a database that is accessed for status reporting and can be queried to identify the specific devices and IPDRs associated with the anomaly.

Edgeware, Skytide team up for QoE

Edgeware and Skytide announced a joint solution that enables real-time quality of experience (QoE) analytics in large-scale multi-screen environments. The solution will assure content monetization, especially for wholesale CDN services, where the operator needs to report specific metrics to the wholesale customer.

“Our joint solution enables operators to dramatically reduce the complexity, cost and turnaround times associated with QoE reporting and analytics in an adaptive streaming environment,” said Michael O’Donnell, CEO of Skytide.

Adaptive bit rate (ABR) streaming detects a user’s available bandwidth in real time and calibrates the video stream accordingly to deliver the best-possible picture quality.

The Edgeware video servers are capable of using “video awareness” and proximity to the client to create a virtual “session” that enables the operator to report usage data tied to sessions and content, not fragments. This dramatically reduces the complexity, cost and processing needed to provide accurate, real-time QoE reporting to the integration layer.

Skytide Insight for CDNs can handle the volume and complexity that ABR streaming demands and transform it into meaningful reports in real time. The combined solution reduces the traffic and processing overhead from potentially thousands of log entries to one per session, resulting in much faster turnaround time in alarms and analytics around QoE.